Condemned Crew
by captaincow
Summary: The commander of a small destroyer finds himself in uncharterted space, with zealous imperial servants convinced his ship is contaminted, though his engine rooms hide a sinister secret. Please R'n'R, first bfg40k story
1. Prolouge

The Navy destroyer _Wrath_ floated through uncharted space on stuttering thrusters, a few minutes ago they had made a quick jump away from the battlefield when the fleet admirals own ship had been destroyed by Chaos forces. He had given the order to retreat but by the time his order was in motion, the entire fleet had been decimated by thousands of lance and torpedo strikes bar the _Wrath_. The crews morale was low, they were the cowards, the survivors of the battle. Ship master Tsenius whispered in the ear of a bridge Lieutenant and spun to look out of the frontal view port, he wondered where they were, a strange blue gas giant was orbited by a single moon to the starboard. He turned over the possibility of landing on the moon and trying to make contact with surface command on Gravitalia II, but was reminded of what chaos craft could do to small planets, it didn't bear thinking about.

In the engine rooms directly behind the bridge, Technician Larson Vask lay with his arm crushed beneath a transportation tram, that had long since lost its occupants, behind him several abominations with dead technicians sprouting from them slipped around the deck leaving trails of blasphemous liquids. Vask had only just regained consciousness and wondered why the foul Daemon things had not yet consumed him. Frozen in terror Vask offered prayers to the emperor in his head as one of the creatures moved toward him, he could only watch in horror as it lifted the small tram revealing his mutilated arm. There was no pain. Not even as he became part of the daemon, buried into its soft flesh.

On the command deck of the _Wrath _a lieutenant approached the ship master "Sir we have lost a team of technicians in Engine room 4C, we have also a small rupture in the same room. That could be the cause for the deaths." Tsenius thought for a moment, then said "Send a team of Ratings down there, and grant the use of standard shells. There are no windows in the engine rooms after all. Make sure they are equipped with breathing apparatus, there could be a vacuum down there." The head of the ship's security, Paplon Vertinus, a man with a huge scar running over his eye and down his cheek turned a nodded affirmatively. "Yes, sir" Tsenius turned to look at him

"And for holy emperors sake, Vertinus not your best men again."

Down in engine room 4C, the daemons went into phase two, one by one the bags of flesh and half buried technicians exploded and the blue suited humans began to reanimate and stand up, with flesh deteriorating as they walked. Shuffling along the floor with frothing mouths and red eyes, some still carried wrenches, hammers, plasma cutters or had mutated arms or faces. All of the other ships in the fleet would be filled with shambling zombies by now. It was a Nurgle tactic, they fired torpedoes filled with tanks of the Zombie Plague virus. People hit by the pure form of the Zombie virus slowly turned into walking abominations, then they would consume others eventually turning them into zombies which could multiply if given a suitable host. At the far side of the room the door slid open and four Navy ratings slipped in. Two more followed, one by one it slowly dawned upon them that the inhabitants of Engine room 4C were dead but were still walking around. As the door closed behind them, twenty pairs of red eyes focused on the eight Navy soldiers. Phase three had begun.


	2. Chapter 1

Battle Admiral Terbius looked out of the prow view point of the Ultramarines _Octavian _battle barge onto the stationary destroyer in front. He looked down to a working technician who looked tiny compared to the huge space marine stood above him "Have we made contact yet?" muttered Terbius. The technician swivelled on his chair

"No they've just come out of the warp, small vessels like that have to wait before their communications are back online, sir"

"The warp? Why only one vessel, I thought destroyers operated in squadrons."

"Sir, it's made a blind jump from Gravitalia II system" the technician shifted uneasily, both of them knew what had just happened in Gravitalia II.

A chirping noise came from the screen the technician was looking at he looked and began talking to Terbius again,

"I've got its profile now sir, its called the _Wrath, _from vengeance squadron of the 53rd eastern fleet, it looks to be lightly armed, no match for the _Octavian_"he said, stating the obvious, "The captain is Ship Master Tsenius, our astropaths are detecting no physcic presence in the usual places, the shrine and bridge, but in the engine rooms, it seems."

"I've have heard enough technician, I need men on that ship, contact the captains immediately."

The last rating fell as he sacrificed himself so his brother could get away but as he went down he saw a large chunk of Viel uniform being ripped off, it had a transpoder on it. The zombie plague victims all around him began to scratch the door open and some of the ratings began to stand again, some hands had been fused to their shotguns and could probably use them in battle. As soon as the door opens.

Back on the bridge Vertinus turned to Tsenius and in a loud whisper said "We have lost contact with the ratings, sir."

"What happened?" Tsenius replied, Vertinus was suddenly cut short by a technician who piped up from the communications deck above them.

"Ship Master, we have a message from a vessel named _Octavian_."

"_The Octavian_." Tsenius was astounded and didn't even try to hide it. "Why wasn't it detected before,"

"Our systems are still un-operational, and our communications only just came back on, if they hadn't it wouldn't of known we were here, sir"

"Put the message on the command deck main screen, and open the view ports. The admantium shield in front of the viewport slid back showing the blue gas giant and another blue giant, but it was a ship, not just any ship though, the _Octavian_ of the Ultramarines. Tsenius stood in awe at the magnificent vessel, although only the size of an imperial cruiser it was still massive compared to a destroyer. Tsenius was brought back by the stern face of Terbius on the screen above the view port.

"This is Battle Admiral Terbius, we have detected contamination on your vessel, please do not resist as men of the 3rd company search your ship, failure to comply will result in destruction of your ship" the communication cut and a Red suited rating, wounded and bruised, stumbled in. "Thee…they are on th…e sh…sh…ip" then he collapsed and lay still.


End file.
